This invention relates to a hydraulic winch, particularly a winch for ships, the winch having an upright housing, at least one cable drum, a hydraulic motor driving a mechanical gear unit or transmission in turn driving the cable drum, a hydraulic pump driven by an electric motor as well as a controller for both the hydraulic pump and the hydraulic motor.
Among the conventional hydraulic winches are those having the mechanical gear transmission accommodated in a gear support unit which is fastened to the support housing and which extends into the cable drum coaxial to the hydraulic gear arranged in the support housing, while the electric motor driving the hydraulic pump is fixed coaxially to the cable drum at the side of the support housing which is turned away from the cable drum. This kind of conventional winch is space-consuming. It requires a relatively large space for the winch drive and a complete adaption of the mechanical gear transmission and the cable drum arrangement to the hydraulic drive apparatus.
A more compact hydraulically driven winch is known. It has an electric motor and a hydraulic pump arranged in a common housing. This common housing is located directly under the hydraulic motor and the cable drum and serves as a base for the winch. The electric motor can be wet-running and can be arranged in the hydraulic fluid reservoir of the hydraulic pump. The cable drum is directly driven by the hydraulic motor without an interposed mechanical gear transmission. However, this conventional winch still requires a complete adaption in the arrangement and mounting of the cable drum to the hydraulic drive apparatus.
Finally, various directly electrically driven winches are well known. In these winches, the mechanical gear transmission located in an upright housing is directly connected to the drive shaft of an electric motor arranged at one side of the upright housing. The electric motor is located in a substantially cylindrical housing which is fastened to the supporting housing. A box-like ventilator housing is provided under the electric motor. The ventilator housing contains a fan driven by a fan motor and rotating about an axis parallel to the axis of the electric motor. The disadvantage of these winches is that the motor output is not effectively used over a range of varying loads.